[Vnbiz] Game on as quiz show craze grips Vietnam

[Phan, Tai]

Game on as quiz show craze grips Vietnam

Don Lee 

Monday, October 23, 2006

 
The game-show contestant was sweating.
The final question would determine whether she would win the round and walk away with the prize. "What animal is the bridge on the Mekong Delta named for?" a female host asked.

Before Trang, the contestant, could react, her rival blurted out the correct answer: monkey.

"I didn't do too well," Trang said glumly, a forlorn figure on a set bathed in bright lights and festooned with tinsel and colorful balloons.

Trang's pain will be broadcast to the nation when the game show episode airs later this fall. Talk about jeopardy: Trang is only nine years old.

Vietnam is awash in television game shows. Its eight major TV stations air more than 50 of them, many in prime time. There are programs geared toward children, or teens, or seniors. Some cater to niche audiences, such as the show that tests soldiers on military life - still revered in this nominally communist nation.

The game shows reflect Vietnam's rapid economic development. In the past decade, a middle class has emerged. Pit toilets are giving way to modern conveniences, cars are replacing motorcycles, and 90 percent of Vietnamese households have television sets. Game shows are helping to influence Vietnam's first TV generation just like television transformed American culture in the 1950s.

In a society where education is seen as the way to economic freedom, Vietnamese say these TV programs serve as mass education. They are teaching people about world history, healthy living and modern lifestyles.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, the eyes of friends Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diep and Nguyen Thu Hien were glued to a large flat-panel Sony television in a relative's home. The two 22-year-old women, who work as receptionists at foreign- based companies, played along as three families battled on Sunday at Home, which quizzes contestants about health and homemaking.

This week's subject was about bathing. "To help you lose weight, what should you put into the bath water?" the host, wearing a red miniskirt, asked the three teams. "A) green tea leaves; B) ginkgo leaves; or C) Vietnamese mint leaves?"

The Vu family hit the bell first and answered C.

"Whoosh!" came the sound, telling them they were wrong. The Phams were next. Green tea leaves, they said. Drums banged, as the couple and their two sons took home the top prize: an air conditioner valued at US$260 (HK$2,2025).

"Oh, I never knew that," said Hien after hearing the correct answer.

Some Vietnamese also see game shows as a chance to get their 15 minutes of fame. Others hope that old friends or long-lost relatives will see them on TV and contact them. Many regard game shows as a kind of public IQ test.

"I want to test my intelligence," said Trang, who acknowledged that her parents pushed her to sign up for the show Fairy Garden.

But there is also fear that the idiot box will live up to its name and that Vietnam will turn into a nation of couch potatoes.

"When TV has so many shows like that, it's not good for the youth because they spend most of their time watching TV without doing anything," said Nguyen Chau, a sociologist at Hanoi University of Foreign Studies. "They waste their youth."

As in China, the government controls the TV stations in Vietnam. 

Before game shows began taking off in the past few years, programming focused mainly on government announcements and dreary education- oriented fare.

The communist government has been flexible with game shows because they do not have political content. 

Private entrepreneurs have been allowed to produce the programs, and networks are buying licensing rights and importing games from the United States, Japan and Europe.

Among the most popular: Vietnamese knockoffs of American shows such as The Price Is Right and Wheel of Fortune.

Every week, thousands of Vietnamese such as the Phams and Vus line up for a chance to play on TV.

Pham Hong Nga, 32, and her husband waited four years before producers of Sunday at Home told them this summer that they might be selected soon. 

After that, the Hanoi couple never left the house together. They took turns going out at night so they would not miss a phone call. Nga, a mother of two, says she went to bed every night with her cellphone next to her.

The call finally came on a recent Thursday evening.

"I was so excited I couldn't talk," said Nga, who has since been preparing for the show by reading up on plumbing and cooking.

The prizes are a big draw. Sunday at Home offers housewares and appliances. Other game shows, such as Fairy Garden, give out books and scholarships.

One of the richest is Ai La Trieu Phu? or "Who Is the Millionaire?" Except that in Vietnam, the winner gets 100 million dong, or about US$6,500 - about 10 times the average annual income. No one has correctly answered the 15 questions to win that prize in the two years that the show has aired.

Vietnam's provincial networks are hastily coming up with their own game shows or knocking off popular games from the US, France and Japan. And more are on the way as foreigners and overseas returnees get in on the new national pastime.

LOS ANGELES TIMES